15 convicted for trafficking 120 children
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-29 17:08

A court in central China has convicted 15 people for trafficking at least 120 children and sentenced the ringleader of the operation to death.

Children rescued last year from a baby trafficking gang, who took 21 babies from Xuanwei, Yunnan Province, and sold them in Hebi, Henan Province. [newsphoto/file]

The Puyang City Intermediate People's Court in Henan province ruled this week that chief culprit Li Guoju would die for his actions, Xinhua news agency said.

Two other leaders, Yu Xiushu and Zhang Xinfa, were given life imprisonment and fined 20,000 yuan (US$2,415). The others were sentenced to between one and 15 years in jail.

They were accused of "colluding with each other" in the kidnapping and trading of children between 1998 to 2003, the report said, without elaborating on the ages of children involved or where they were abducted and sold.

Neither did the report say how the group was smashed.

Children and babies are snatched by the traffickers and sold to childless couples.

Police announced in March that 42,215 women and children kidnapped in the three years from 2001 had been located and freed from captors.

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